Artist Marc Brownlow won first place in the food category of our Halloween contest last year for his gorgeously gourmet Skull Truffles. His how-to is a clear and well-photographed 19 steps, and the end result provides some delicious motivation: dark chocolate center, white chocolate skull, with candied walnut braaaaaains!

But the part that folks found challenging was making the skull molds. Marc is a product designer, graphic designer, and illustrator, which explains why his skull molds look so darn good. I can guarantee my version would look more like snowman heads than skulls. Here’s Marc’s version:

Several folks had asked if Marc would make and sell the molds. I touched base with him to get his thoughts and he wrote:

I’m delighted that people still like that project. I would be willing to sell the molds, but the price of just the food-grade silicone alone is so high ($25/lb) that I don’t know if people would want to pay for it. By the time I added shipping and paid myself anything for labor it would be in the $30-$35 range. My instinct is that if it was around $10 per finished mold, people might go for it, but I don’t know where I could get super cheap food-grade silicone.

I made a big batch of skull truffles for a party on Saturday and they were a big hit. I treated myself to a chocolate tempering machine last year and it makes the process so much quicker. I also made candied walnut brains instead of using candy melts, since the candy melt had too many artificial ingredients for my tastes.

I would be willing to look into what was required to sell the skull truffles themselves. I suspect I’d need to get a food safety license and learn how to safely ship chocolate so it doesn’t arrive in a melted puddle.

Anyone know of a source for super cheap food-grade silicone?
Alternately, anyone got tips on shaping skulls? Post up in the comments below!

I’m a word nerd who loves to geek out on how emerging technology affects the lexicon. When not fawning over perfect word choices, I can be found on the nearest mountain, looking for untouched powder fields and ideal alpine lakes.

I was an editor for the first 40 volumes of MAKE. The maker movement provides me with endless inspiration, and I love shining light on the incredible makers in our community. Covering art is my passion — after all, art is the first thing most of us ever made.

Contact me at snowgoli (at) gmail (dot) com.

http://lrwickerdesign.net/ lrwickerdesign

Maybe he should consider selling copies of his original pieces he cast the silicone molds from. I imagine they would be cheaper and folks could make multiple silicone molds from them to speed their production. Just a thought, might not be feasible either.

Goli Mohammadi

That’s a good suggestion!

Greg Ketell

We need a 3D chocolate printer!!

http://sugarenthusiast.blogspot.com Kelly

So freaking awesome.

http://twitter.com/laura2daisy laura smith (@laura2daisy)

I am sure you can get Halloween skull shot glasses easily and use that as a mould but then it be a pain to get the chocolate out afterwards..